now it is based on that that we have identified areas that we need to expand upon, so that we can have sustainable development."  He added that, "we cannot achieve any of these goals if we don't have a health system that provides health for people where they work and live. For us to do this, we need to put up a health system that is able to do this without any issues of catastrophe from financing health care." 

 

Kene, noted that the assodation was looking at universal health coverage as a key to SDG. Baring his mind on the Lassa fever epidemic, he blamed the inability of the country to tackle the disease like it did against Ebola, on misdiagnosis at the hospital system.  He explained: "We must have a robust surveillance system that identify and predict disease occurrence and prevent them when they happen.  Nigeria did that with Ebola virus and it was a wonderful response, with what we have seen, improvements from that experience will put us in a very good chance to prevent diseases occurring in this country. 

 

"With what happened recently (Lassa outbreak), a lot of people died, we have not seen this type of condition in the last few years, usually 'we have one or two cases and intervention is done.  "In terms of response, the problem is that there is always misdiagnosis at the hospital system," the chairman noted While rating the health system in Nigeria, Kene stressed that it could be classified as poor because we were yet to get it right.  "We have a primary healthcare system and it is not functioning. Primary healthcare has to be functional for us to talk about a strong healthcare system. 

 

As we have it now, the health system is poor, all indicators in that direction are poor, and if you compare us to other countries of the world, we easily come down as the worst country with the indices."  On his part.,a professor of public health from Ahamadu Bello University, ZaritillI, Prof. Muhammed Sambo, said when an outbreak has become a recurring decimal, it becomes a grave source of concern.  He noted that, "issue like epidemics of Lassa fever shouldn't have happened, because this is an epidemic that has been occurring in this country, the first case of Lassa fever was in Nigeria, but, it is not surprising when we look at the functionality of our health system. 

 

Our health system has been adjudged to be one of the worst in the world going by the ranking of the performance of the healthcare system."  Sambo opined that without an effective primary healthcare system, there won't be a good health system, but stressed that if the Health Act can be operationalised, there would be an improved health system in the country.